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CCleaner
- Thread starter BoxerBoy
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"Cleaning" applications are not really needed, I haven't used one in years.
I used Onyx in shortly after the switch, as I still had the "Windows needs to be cleaned, so does every other OS" mindset, but Mac OS X actually does take good care of itself.
And if something is broken, there is almost always an easy fix.
PS: Five Mac maintenance myths
I used Onyx in shortly after the switch, as I still had the "Windows needs to be cleaned, so does every other OS" mindset, but Mac OS X actually does take good care of itself.
And if something is broken, there is almost always an easy fix.
PS: Five Mac maintenance myths
Have been using CCleaner for a few months now on my MacMini 2011. Never once an issue has popped up. Though one does not really need it, I like it just the same. No slow downs noticed as well. Nice to keep my system a tad cleaner with all the Cookies. 
You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Some remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.
These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. Some of these apps delete caches, which can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.
Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.
Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.
The scripts run at night, but if your Mac is shut down or asleep at the scheduled time, they will automatically run the next time your Mac is awake.
Not true.....if your Mac is not up, running, and awake when the scripts want to run, they will not run later when it is.
Here is a good article on this:
http://www.techbeast.net/2011/07/24/osx-lion-maintenance-scripts/
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Yes, it is true. Install Maintidget - The OS X Maintenance Scripts Widget to track when the scripts were last run. You will see that they do, indeed, run when your Mac is awake, if it's shut down or sleeping at the scheduled time.
Mac OS X: About background maintenance tasks
I found that they also run after it wakes in Leopard, despite Apple's statement to the contrary.
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Then something was wrong with your installation or your system, because that's not normal behavior for OnyX. What were you using it for?
They do when you turn it back on. Even if you missed a script running once, it would still run on the next scheduled day, week or month. If you leave your Mac shutdown all the time, there's no need for scripts to run at all.
Some people shut down their systems every night and start them back up when they need to use it again. If that is the case, the scripts will never run. So, I guess you were half wrong and I was half right....
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If the computer is shut down at the scheduled time, scripts resume running on schedule when the computer is on. If you leave it shut down 24 hours and miss the running of a daily script, when you turn it back on, it will run the next scheduled script. Those that want to can use the widget I mentioned in post #10 to force the scripts to run on demand.
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